Page 87 of The Mafia Marriage Contract

Tears spill down her cheeks, but I'm past caring about her pain. She's been playing me from day one, and I fell for it like some lovesick teenager.

“I got the order a week ago. It was the Red Tribunal.”

Those motherfuckers. It was them, not Cormac.

All because I didn’t kill him fast enough?

"Well, you fucking failed the night of the hit, so have you been strategizing the next perfect moment to do it?” I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "Letting me fuck you while you planned my funeral?"

"Kingston, please listen to me."

"I'm done listening to you." I let go of her chin and step back, and she crumples backward against the glass. "Every bullshit word that's come out of your mouth has been a lie.Every touch, every kiss, every time you screamed my name. You were just playing your part."

"That's not true!" She pushes off the wall, reaching for me, but I dodge her touch like it's poison. "My feelings for you are real. What happens between us, it's real. If you listened to my conversation, then you know that."

"Bullshit." I'm pacing like a caged animal. "You love me so much you're going to kill me? That's some twisted fucking logic, even for an O'Callaghan."

"I never wanted this!" The words explode out of her, raw and desperate. "I swear, I didn’t have anything to do with the hit. I haven’t done anything to put you in danger. I’ve been fighting against it."

"But you're going to do it anyway." It's not a question. “I heard you say it. You’ll do your goddamn duty.”

Livvie’s body quivers and she wrings her hands together. "They'll kill my family if I don't. Everyone I've ever cared about will die because I couldn't follow through on the order."

"So you choose them over me."

"I choose survival," she yells, showing that flash of the fire I fell in love with. "The Tribunal doesn't accept failure, Kingston. They don't forgive disobedience."

Yeah, don’t I know it. But I keep their order to me quiet for now.

"And I don't forgive betrayal."

The words hang between us like a toxic cloud. She knows what they mean. In my world, betrayal has only one consequence.

"I never wanted to hurt you," she whispers. "But I don’t know how to get out of this. Everytime I pulled away, I was trying to keep you from getting too close because I knew… I knew this would destroy us both."

"Congratulations. Mission accomplished."

I turn to leave, but she grabs my arm. Her touch burns hot on my skin when it shouldn’t.

"Kingston, wait. There has to be another way around this kill order. We can figure it out together, find out what the Red Tribunal wants and then… maybe…" Her voice drifts off because she knows it’s impossible.

The trust is broken.

We’re broken.

I look down at her hand on my skin, then meet her eyes. What I see there might have been love once, but it's tainted now. Poisoned by duty and family loyalty and the kind of choices that stain your soul black.

I know those choices all too well.

"You made your choice the second you accepted their order," I say under my breath. "When you decided my life was worth fuck all to you."

"That's not fair?—"

"Fair?" The word comes out like a bullet. "You want to talk about fair? I gave you everything. My trust, my protection, my fucking heart. And all the while you've been planning to kill me.”

I wrench my arm free and head for the door. Behind me, a sob cracks through the air, broken sounds that might have melted me an hour ago. Now they just sound like white noise.

I pause in the doorway, not turning around. "Get the fuck out of here, Livvie. Get out of my life. And just know that if you decide to follow through on your order, you’dbetter pray you hit the target because if not, I‘ll do my fucking duty, too."